


Strange Pairs

by one_dead_diva



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 12:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15885690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_dead_diva/pseuds/one_dead_diva
Summary: Not strictly canon, but if Black Sails has taught us anything its to value stories both true and not so true! I think this is just another way the Rangers could have first met :)





	Strange Pairs

Charles Vane doesn’t think he’s ever seen such an unlikely looking pair of criminals. Charles himself is, in fact, a criminal (and a good one, he would be quick to point out with the sharp edge of a blade to anyone who might ask) and he and the men he works with could not be further from the image he sees before him. Where Charles and his crew are tanned, well muscled specimens whose career choices are obvious in their rough clothes, tattoos and battle scars, the young man he is watching is tall and rather gangly, with rather ornate facial hair, and he’s wearing a very battered jacket festooned with trimmings Charles can’t even pretend to know the proper name for. And the other, well, the other half of the pair isn’t even a man at all (though he has been watching these two for some time now and he didn’t realize at first that the long coat and weathered hat contained a woman).

 

To be fair, though, had that horse not spooked right as the strange woman’s hand was deep in a gentleman’s pocket, they would have gotten away with it. She was deadly quiet and surprisingly unnoticeable among the crowd, and the young man had been creating a successful diversion by playing a sloppy drunk, wavering between the masses and singing loudly, creating pockets of space where he needed them by loudly inferring he was about to be sick. They had in fact made off with several purses already. Charles, accomplished thief that he is, has never seen teamwork like this in his profession; he’d had no idea you could leave a place with someone else’s money but without their corpse on the ground. He is not _un_ impressed.

 

But it doesn’t really matter now because the constable and his goons have arrived and they’ve got the both of them by the arms, despite the woman’s enthused attempts at kicking and biting her captors. As Vane watches, he sees the pair’s eyes meet and a look exchanged. Suddenly, the young man stops struggling and shouts, “OH GOD, THE POX HAS FINALLY CAUGHT ME” and this time he really _does_ vomit, impressively, and directly onto his oppressors, splattering them and causing them to release him and recoil from the mess. This has set off the gag reflexes of several ladies in attendance, and soon all is bedlam and no one but Vane and the young woman in chains have noticed that the man has disappeared. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s later that night, outside the jail, and Charles Vane has been following slowly behind the odd young man since he disappeared down a narrow alleyway, shedding his clothes and collecting other pieces from real drunks passed out in doorways. He’d watched from a distance as the man had adorned himself with his purloined goods, stuffing his old clothes up into the belly of the new ones, long fingers plucking a white wig from the head of a sleeping reveler and fixing it over his dark hair, taking a blade (with a look of fond regret even Vane could see from his vantage point in the darkness) to his tidy facial hair and doing away with it altogether. By the time he finished, he looked the very picture of an out of shape, out of touch townsman nearly unrecognizable as the wiry youth almost arrested in the square earlier.

 

Charles followed close behind as they made their way to the jail, but takes a step back into the shadows as the man takes a deep breath, pulls out a large purse (Vane recognizes it as one they’d managed to snatch before their capture) and knocks loudly on the door of the jailhouse. The moment it opens the jailer is besieged by words and the sight of the enormous pouch of coins. Clever, Vane thinks, to keep waving it right in front of his eyes.

 

“Well, come now, my good man, where is she? Where is that hoor of a wife of mine? Bring her to me immediately, for I must needs discipline her most harshly!” he cries, in a voice rather higher than the one Vane heard him use earlier.

 

The jailer looks puzzled, and almost hypnotized by the sight of the swinging purse. “Your…wife?”

 

“Yes, man, my wife! The petty sneak-thief that she is! I provide her a life of luxury, give her everything she needs, and still she vexes me. Bring her to me at once!”

 

The warden looks back into the interior of the jail and calls out to his deputy, “Er, Watts, bring out the girl…this bloke ‘ere claims she’s ‘is wife. ‘E’s got the bail…”

 

To fill the silence, the young man continues. “I do apologize, my dear sir, for her behavior. She wasn’t raised properly, you see, she was brought up in a Turkish brothel and even now she still can’t shake her old habits! But what can I say, sir, the heart wants what it wants, and I can’t deny that she certainly picked a few things up in that brothe- Ah! Darling, here you are. I hope you haven’t caused these fine men too much trouble- you haven’t, have you dear?” This he addresses to the young woman, who has just been brought out in shackles and is looking far from contrite, if (to Vane’s eye) rather bemused. In response, she simply glowers at her partner from beneath the brim of her hat.

 

“Right. Well, thank you, good sirs, for taking such good care of my wanton wife. Here you’ll find her bail all in account, as well as a little something extra in it for your admirable commitment to keeping the law and order in this town! Now if I could just… have that key…?” The young man reaches out his hand with the purse in it, dangling it before the eyes of the jailer.

 

The jailer snatches at the purse but eyes the man warily, making a show of keeping hold of the key while he begins to unlock the woman’s chains. “You know,” he says slowly, his beady eyes disappearing further into the fat of his cheeks as he squints in suspicion, “She ‘ad a man with ‘er when we arrested ‘er. ‘E got away, though, dinnee Watts?”

 

The youth in disguise freezes, rooted in place for an interminable, his pinched smile becoming more of a grimace each heavy second that goes by.

 

“A man, you say?”

 

“Ay. Wouldn’t ‘appen to know ‘im, eh?”

 

The tense silence breaks suddenly as the man springs to action. “Darling! I can’t believe it. You’ve been running around with _him_ again, haven’t you? Sirs, it’s the stable boy, I can’t seem to keep them apart. Darling, I’m so very disappointed in you,” Vane watches as he locks eyes with the young woman, and if he isn’t mistaken he thinks he sees a tiny, imperceptible nod.

 

She snorts. “Fuck you, Jack,” she rolls her eyes, but Vane can see her brace herself for whatever is coming next.

 

“Do you see how she shames me? Take her back, I’m done with her,” he shrugs.

 

“…wot?” says the dimwitted Watts.

 

The man snatches the purse back from the jailer, “Go on! Take the slattern, I’ll keep my hard earned money!”

 

“Now wait ‘ere just one minute,” says the jailer, and as he reaches for the purse he drops the young woman’s chains and that is the last mistake he makes in this world. The woman sends a booted foot into his rear end, sending him stumbling, and quick as a flash she’s got the chains wrapped around the neck of the unfortunate Watts and is quietly choking the life from him. Her kick pushes the jailer straight into the waiting knife of the young man, who Vane notes is far less graceful than his partner but effective nonetheless. Within moments the pair has their captors dead on the ground. A smile creeps up Charles’ lips. He watches a moment as the pair struggle to drag their prey under cover of the jail before he makes his move.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Well, that went better than I expected,” Jack says, though his voice is rather strained, breathless as he is from pulling the dead weight of Mr. Watts into an empty cell.

 

“Coulda gone better,” Anne mutters, looping the chains around the jailer’s throat and dragging him in alongside. “That disgorging-on-command thing you do is disgusting.” She dumps the body in the cell with a grunt, gives it a kick for good measure and looks at Jack more tenderly. “I’m sorry you had to shave.”

 

“Not to worry, my dear, it’ll grow back soon enough,” Jack says cheerily, but Anne notices him unconsciously bring his fingers up to touch the now naked parts of his face after he says it. She winces slightly. She knows how long it took for that mustache to grow in last time, and she had been subjected to many rounds of Does-This-Look-Even-To-You before the deed was done.

 

Anne lets out a long sigh and wonders what the plan is now. They’ve been shuffling through the outskirts of London for bloody months now, a pair of outcasts attempting to blend into the crowds of town after town (Anne has promised Jack that she’ll stop bringing up the catastrophic “plan” that got them stuck on British soil in the first place, so at times like this she finds it best to take deep breaths). They scam til they become too recognizable to remain safe; inevitably Anne will lose control of her temper, or Jack will take his schemes one step too far and they’ll have to move on. Anne would follow Jack to the ends of the earth, but she’s getting tired of hiding, like rats snatching up crumbs as they scurry to the next hole in the wall. Moreover, they’re running out of places to run  _to_.

 

Jack notices her distress and reaches for her, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her head up to look him in the eye. “Really, darling, it will be all right. To be quite honest, that was almost too easy!”

 

Anne’s blade is in her hand before the low chuckle emanating from the shadows even finishes. She and Jack are frozen for a moment as a man emerges slowly, holding his hand up in a “stand down” gesture. Anne is surprised by his size; the bulk of his muscles don’t match the grace of his movements or his silence.

 

“So what you’re saying,” says the stranger, “Is that you’re looking for a challenge.”

 

Jack looks at Anne. Anne looks at Jack. They both look at the professional before them.

 

“My name is Charles Vane,” says the man. “Have you ever considered high seas piracy?”

 


End file.
